Dell A940 review

Kristina Blachere CNET

Published: 05 Dec 2003

You may recognise Dell’s A940 printer as the fraternal twin of another multifunction printer: the Lexmark X5150. That's because it's the same printer with a Dell logo slapped on. Why review it, you ask? Because this printer -- along with Dell's P1500 laser printer, A920 all-in-one and J740 inkjet -- represents the company's first attempts to brand its own peripheral devices. Also, Dell's new multifunction costs a bit less than Lexmark's, and it comes with Dell's service and support, which is more comprehensive than Lexmark's. Other than that, you'll find the same wealth of functions and ease of use, as well as mediocre print quality and high ink consumption. In short, the A940 may seem like a bargain at the outset -- especially if you're buying a whole system from Dell -- but beware the long-term cost of replacement ink.

Design

Judging by its large size and multiple uses (scanning, copying, and printing), you might expect Dell's A940 to be expensive. In fact, this multifunction device (MFD) costs just over £100 (inc. VAT) -- about the same as an inexpensive standalone printer or scanner. In fact, despite this device's hulking size and built-in flatbed scanner, this MFD's rickety-plastic input and output trays just scream budget inkjet. The Lexmark's trays are just as flimsy. Like the Lexmark X5150, the A940 doesn't let you fax directly from the machine. You must go through your PC's fax modem.

The printer's casing is grey and black to match Dell's notebook and desktop line, which makes it look more interesting than your usual beige printer. But despite its stripped-down appearance, the A940 is extremely functional and, therefore, very easy for beginners to use. Setup is as simple as plugging in the device to your computer's USB port (a cable is included). You can access any feature through the software drivers on your PC when you hook up the device or via the clearly marked, easy-to-use one-touch and navigation buttons on the top panel.

What you won't find on this budget multifunction are higher-end features, such as an automatic document feeder or built-in duplexing. To get extras such as these, you'll have to spend two to three times as much on a multifunction.

Features

To the Dell A940 printer's credit, it is remarkably easy to take advantage of its many features. The scan bed is simple to use -- just open the lid and position your document. Also, the input and output trays (100 sheets in, 50 sheets out) will make sense to anyone who has ever used an inkjet printer, and the device's cover raises easily to expose the ink cartridges for replacement.

The operator panel, which consists of a series of function and navigation buttons and an informative LCD, makes performing any of the device's multiple functions simplicity itself. To scan, just press the Select Software button; choose whether you want to scan into programs such as email, Microsoft Word or Photoshop; then press the Scan key. Copying is as simple as choosing between colour or black and white. And when you want to scan photos, you can choose among reprint sizes (for example, 3in. by 5in. or 8in. by 10in.) with the press of a button.

The LCD is as full of information as your average software print driver -- or of the A940's driver, for that matter. The LCD lets you select the number of copies, the output quality, the ink density and the option for collating (no special attachment needed), and it even shows the ink levels in your cartridges. To scroll through all of these options, simply access the handful of navigation buttons above the one-touch portion of the panel. All in all, you could very well start putting the A940 to good use without so much as a glance at the owner's manual.

You can access all of the A940's functions, including printing -- which can't be done without the PC -- via the included Dell All-In-One Center software, which puts an icon in your Windows taskbar. This program neatly groups the access to fax, copy, scan and print capabilities into one window, and it offers creative solutions, such as how to print posters, email an image and edit text scanned to OCR software. Dell also includes its own Photo Editor software, which offers rudimentary photo-manipulation tools for red-eye, cropping, colour fills and more.

One caveat for those who are new to multifunctions: although the Dell A940 does have fax capabilities, it does not plug in to your phone line like a standard fax machine does. Instead, you'll have to scan documents and send them via the included BVRP's FaxTools software through your PC's modem. This is fine for occasional faxing, but as with the Lexmark X5150, for frequent or big fax jobs, you may want to consider a standalone fax machine with an autofeeder.

Performance

As you might expect, the Dell A940 printer's performance on our speed and quality tests is nearly identical to that of the Lexmark X5150. Its text-printing speeds averaged 5.5 pages per minute, which is a solid middle-range score among both standalone inkjets and multifunctions. The A940's photo print speeds, on the other hand, are quite impressive for such an inexpensive machine. At 1.83 minutes per page, it ranks up there with highly rated inkjets.

Print quality is another story. Our jury rated text as fair on both plain copy paper and coated inkjet paper, while graphics were fair on plain paper and poor on inkjet paper. Text appeared very blotchy and hard to read at both small and regular (9 to 12 points) font sizes. The text also looked decidedly fuzzy and exhibited noticeable horizontal banding in places. Graphics suffered from visible banding and fuzziness, a dithered cast to graphics, photos and gradients, and soft lines. Our 8in. by 10in. test photo appeared quite dark and blocky in places, as if the printer couldn't pick up the fine details of the original photo.

Scan quality, on the other hand, looked quite good -- comparable to that of better standalone scanners, such as the older Epson Perfection 2400. On our black-and-white test scan, photos came out clear and bright, with expertly reproduced fine details. On the colour scan, photos were nice and sharp, and the scanner reproduced colour shading nicely.

The A940's so-so copy quality rendered details fairly well but had a greenish cast. It also looked faded in places yet too black (in text, especially) in others.

Before you consider buying any printing device, you must remember that the consumable costs -- that is, ink and paper -- can jack up the price significantly. The Dell A940's £106 (inc. VAT) price tag is slightly negated by its ink prices. New cartridges cost £21 for black and £26 for colour, and according to our drain tests, the printer ate up about 5.3p per page of black ink, which is about average for an inkjet, and 35p per page of colour ink, which is a little expensive.

Service & support

Dell backs the A940 with a one-year next business day exchange warranty. However, you can upgrade to a two-year or three-year warranty for £19 and £38 respectively -- an option that could benefit companies that put more wear and tear on their machines. With the standard warranty, you get access to Dell's technical phone support for the life of the printer -- a generous offering. Dell's Web site also contains a plethora of support options, such as email tech support, a searchable knowledge base, downloadable drivers and community forums for discussion with other users.

For basic quality or maintenance issues, however, you can simply consult the Dell Printer Solution Center, which is part of the All-In-One software. It also features a how-to section with a task-based user manual that brings up a graphical page of instructions for actions such as scanning, printing photos and using the device's operator panel.

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